That there were Church members in Tahiti before there were Church members in Utah says something about the spread of the gospel in the world. The early establishment of the Church in the Society Islands (French Polynesia) illustrates the willing sacrifice of missionaries and their families for the sake of teaching the gospel to all mankind. It is an epic enacted by heroic characters, men and women.

The Prophet Joseph Smith, while visiting the Nauvoo Temple under construction, met Addison Pratt. Brother Pratt told the Prophet how, during his whaling experiences, he had spent six months on the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands in 1822, and that he thought the islanders would be interested in the Book of Mormon. The prophet agreed and a mission to the Sandwich Islands was soon discussed.The call was issued by the Twelve to Addison Pratt, Noah Rogers, Benjamin F. Grouard, and Knowlton F. Hanks. Elder Pratt, 46, had four daughters, ages 3 to 11. Noah Rogers, 46, left a wife and nine children, ages 5 to 21. Elder Hanks, was single and sick with asthma. It was thought a sea voyage would heal him. Elder Grouard, 24, had a wife who did not follow his direction to remain in Nauvoo, but returned to Philadelphia.

For financial means the missionaries were dependent upon the generosity of the Saints or the kindness of anyone else. Their families were left to their own resources. There was no monetary aid to either the missionaries or their families. A kinsman of the Pratts, P.B. Lewis, paid passage to take the men to their field.

The four left Nauvoo June 1, 1843, and departed from New Bedford, Mass. Oct. 6. Seven months later, after crossing the Atlantic Ocean and sailing around the Cape of Good Hope and Australia, their boat touched the small island Tubuai April 30, 1844, 400 miles south of Tahiti.

The people were so enthusiastic for a resident missionary that Elder Pratt decided it would be a neglect of duty if he did not stop and live among them. The elders separated. Elders Rogers and Grouard sailed on to Papeete, Tahiti, the center of the Society Islands. Elder Hanks had died and was buried at sea.

On Tubuai, Elder Pratt made friends with six Americans, shipbuilders who had married island women. Charles Hill became his translator, standing beside him on formal and informal occasions. Soon, he was defending the doctrine himself.

Elder Pratt preached on Sundays, held school three times a week, and spent evenings until midnight discussing Bible passages, and administering to the sick. He required converts to adhere to the Word of Wisdom and to the Christian law of chastity, among other fundamentals of the gospel. His own study of the language was advanced by July 11, when King Tamatoa presented him with a pamphlet of Tahitian-English vocabulary.

On July 22, 1844, several Americans and islanders were baptized. The next Sunday, July 29, 1844, Elder Pratt organized the "Toobouai Branch of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." From that day, there has been in continual existence a branch of the Church on Tubuai, led by local priesthood leadership - perhaps the longest continual branch in the history of the Church. On Feb. 20, 1845, the lone elder wrote Brigham Young:

"The Lord has greatly blessed my feeble efforts to spread the gospel. I have baptized fifty-seven persons on this island, and they are all here now but one; he went to Tahiti. Among them are the queen, who is heiress to the crown, a deputy king and his wife and daughter, a girl about fifteen, the head chief and his wife, these are adopted parents to the queen, and several of the subordinate chiefs; so you see the reins of government are within the church, and it has blundered me into a very awkward position, for if you will allow me to speak jestingly, I am prime minister of the island. My counsel is sought for in most law cases, though it is my endeavor to keep clear of them as much as possible."

Conditions were just right for Elder Pratt's success on Tubuai. He provided for himself almost entirely by his hunting and fishing. The island was remote and seldom visited by those who would give him trouble.

Elder Pratt's success on Tubuai anchored the Church in the islands. The situation met by Elders Rogers and Grouard, however, was radically different. On Tahiti they found themselves in the battle zone of war between the attacking French forces and the defending English and islanders. Residing in Papeete, the men made only a little progress in learning the language and establishing a branch. Discouraged and anxious to find Polynesians not affected by the war, the elders parted company and visited outlying island groups. After a year of such visiting without success, Elder Rogers returned to Papeete where he found a ship leaving for America. He took the ship, Three Brothers, and returned to the main body of the Church, then established at Nauvoo. He died in the westward exodus.

War time was no time to preach the gospel. After the long voyage to the islands, the missionaries lamented the coincidence of their coming during war. But what appeared then a stumbling block turned out to be the very factor that opened the field for them. Prior to the war, the English missionaries were in power and disapproved of any Mormon intrusion. Had the English been in power, then the Latter-day Saint missionaries would have been expelled. With the French came religious freedom in theory and practice, favorable to Latter-day Saints as well as French Catholics. This middle period was followed by a third period when the French decreed only Tahitian ministers could serve congregations and that all foreigners must have the means to support themselves in the islands. The Mormon missionary effort, fortunately, coincided with the tolerance of the middle period.

When the elders divided the field between them, Elder Grouard chose to go east to the inhabitants of the low-lying coral reef islands of the Tuamotu Archipelago. The English missionaries had neglected these people, mainly because the islands restricted living to a bare subsistence on coconut, fish and hogs. This left the islanders of Tuamotu all the more anxious for resident missionaries.

On May 1, 1845, Elder Grouard landed on the coral reef island of Anaa. The Polynesians were overjoyed. Boats came out to meet the ship. The beach was lined with islanders, shouting "like a flock of ten thousand wild geese." The next moment Elder Grouard was "surrounded by some two or three hundred natives of both sexes of all ages: naked, half naked and clad; hooting, hallooing, and jabbering." The missionary was escorted to the chiefs, who were well dressed in native attire and who put searching questions to him and exacted promises to which Elder Grouard agreed.

The people helped Elder Grouard get settled as he became acquainted with them. On May 25 he held his first public meeting and baptism. Four months later he counted 620 members in good standing, organized into five branches. To deliver his cry for help, he left Anaa and went to Tahiti, where he learned Elder Rogers had gone home, and on to Tubuai where he found Elder Pratt anxious for change, since he had converted most of the Polynesians on Tubuai. They returned to Anaa Feb. 5, 1846. Elder Grouard had been gone about five months.

Elders Pratt and Grouard divided the field between them. Elder Pratt supervised part of the Church on Anaa. He established a routine alternating his residence, village to village, teaching the people, baptizing converts, organizing branches and training leaders. He established schools and taught songs and hymns.

Elder Grouard liked pioneering better than did Elder Pratt, he thought. He turned over his branches on Anaa and undertook an extended voyage touching the islands of the Tuamotus. Between June 5 and Sept. 18, 1846, he and a large crew of friends visited these numerous islands and baptized 116 persons.

Back on Anaa, the elders conducted the first conference held in the islands on Sept 24, 1846. Reported were 10 branches of the Church, with 866 members in good standing, meaning living the Word of Wisdom and the law of chastity.

Elders Pratt and Grouard had established the Church's first mission among a foreign culture and foreign-language people. They taught one-on-one, from the Bible - which the London Missionary Society had translated into Tahitian. Elder Pratt also used their hymn book. To English-speaking investigators they could give or loan a copy of the Book of Mormon. Elder Pratt also had a few copies, soon exhausted, of Parley P. Pratt's Voice of Warning and Orson Pratt's Remarkable Visions. It was difficult for the missionaries from England to oppose the Latter-day Saint missionaries since they taught from the Bible.

The missionaries faced three major problems: transportation, the Tahitian language and mail.

As a sailor, Elder Grouard had helped build ships in American docks, and was interested in the vessel being built by Americans on Tubuai. During his sojourn in the islands, connected with his name are three ships - including the Ravaai or the mission-built craft finished May 4, 1851.

The Tahitian language, it should be noted, was unrelated to Indo-European languages, there being no cognates to help a learner. Elder Pratt was aided by the Tahitian language translation of the Bible and hymnal, and a vocabulary furnished him by King Tamatoa.

With the mail dependent wholly upon the chance coming and going of American whaling ships, and dispatching mail from land and sea, it is little wonder that the missionaries went without mail and concluded they were forgotten and left alone in the world. In three years Elder Pratt received three letters. On Tubuai, in December 1845, a Captain Sajat carried two letters from his wife. "These were the first letters that had been received from America," he wrote. While on Anaa, March 5, 1846, he received a letter from Wilford Woodruff dated November 1844. This was the only communication from the Twelve that he received.

The Woodruff letter was consequential. Since it did not mention their families, the elders changed course for the mission. Addison Pratt decided he would return to America, find his family and recruit additional missionaries. Elder Grouard concluded that his wife had left him.

Elder Pratt left Anaa Nov. 4, 1846. Sailing by way of Hawaii and San Francisco, he was two years reaching family and Church. On Sept. 28, 1848, he found his family in the Old Fort in the Salt Lake Valley. Addison and his wife, Louisa, had been separated five years and four months. His wife had been caught up in the exodus: evacuating Nauvoo, crossing Iowa, living at Winter Quarters, and then crossing the plains the summer of 1848. His four daughters had grown out of recognition.

The first Sunday in the Valley, Elder Pratt was called upon to report his mission, which he did, including a reading of a letter to the Church from the elders, with its plea for additional missionaries to be called. Sister Pratt could not take another separation, and concluded that if Addison went, she and the girls would go. And if they should go then Sister Pratt's sister, Caroline, and her husband, Jonathan Crosby, should go. Sister Pratt's determined effort paid off.

To answer the cry for help in the mission, Addison Pratt and James S. Brown left Salt Lake Valley in October 1849 and reached Papeete May 24, 1850, only to be confined by the French government until some satisfactions were met.

In the Salt Lake Valley, a large company of missionaries was formed, leaving May 7, 1850, and arriving at Tubuai Oct. 21, 1850. In the company were 21 people - including Elder Pratt's four daughters, wife, and her sister's family.

At last the French requests were understood and easily met, and Elders Pratt and Brown were free to go. The elders on Tahiti soon joined the families on Tubuai, and a new era for the mission was launched.

The ship Ravaai in service for the mission changed the character of missionary activities in the islands. The ship carried missionaries to their appointed islands and moved them when needed, and also engaged in some commerce, which helped support the mission. The gospel was revitalized in branches where there had been neglect for want of elders. Benjamin Grouard captained the Ravaai. The elder missionaries took up assigned labors among the scattered islands, leaving on Tubuai the wives of new missionaries.

Sister Louisa Pratt, who had been set apart by Brigham Young as a missionary at her departure from Salt Lake Valley, took her appointment seriously. She and her sister, and others no doubt, made heroic efforts to learn the language. They made use of the Tahitian translations of the Bible and hymn book. The Pratts' daughter, Ellen, acquired the language sooner than others and became an interpreter for her mother and Aunt Caroline.

The sisters sought to teach mainly by example. Louisa kept a clean house and yard and induced the others to do the same. She taught members to set a table and encouraged the use of utensils. Manners, etiquette and cleanliness all came from instruction and exhibit. Regular school was held for youngsters by these New England school teachers. And if the sisters had any spare time, they began writing their memoirs and keeping journals. The American children came in for school too, but the island furnished such excellent play grounds that some ran free. Sister Pratt kept her daughters busy with certain children in their charge.

As the months rolled by, and the steady, quiet routine of life marked their days, times were "dull, dull, dull" for Sister Pratt. For Caroline such peace was opportunity for reflection. Even so, the mingling of American and Tahitian playmates gave rise to a "Tahitianization," which gravely concerned Sister Pratt. When Addison returned from a long voyage of island hopping, she expressed her fears. She was anxious to return to the United States.

Elder Pratt knew of other factors influencing plans for the mission. To the French government the islands were becoming a place for freeloaders, down-and-out people who lived off the islanders. Many were Americans of whom the administration was fearful or skeptical, believing the United States had territorial ambitions for Tahiti. Directly affecting the American Latter-day Saints was the law passed by the French Protectorate legislature: only natives could preside over a congregation. The administration further tightened the requirement that anyone staying in Tahiti must have the means to take care of themselves while visiting.

The elders had trained local priesthood leadership; this helped the branches to survive. These matters came to a head at the time one elder offended the French and was ordered out of the Protectorate. Accordingly, it was decided the mission must be closed.

Farewells were sung on Tubuai April 6, 1852; the Pratt and Grouard families left together on May 16. Others left soon after. By the end of 1852, only Sidney Alvarus Hanks remained, and he was far away in the Tuamotus, forgotten, turned native almost. He lingered to help the Church survive the coming years without missionaries.

Sources: Seasons of Faith and Courage: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in French Polynesia: A Sesquicentennial History 1843-1993, by S. George Ellsworth and Kathleen C. Perrin (Salt Lake City: Yves Perrin, 1994); The Journals of Addison Pratt, edited by S. George Ellsworth (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1990); Zion in Paradise: Early Mormons in the South Seas, by S. George Ellsworth (Utah State University Faculty honor Lecture, 1959).